Slavery | Gherkins & Tomatoes

* “We raise the wheat, they give us the corn” : a reflection on life in antebellum Virginia

February 4, 2013 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Not too long ago, before the snow fell and kept falling, I drove down to Critz, Virginia, the homeplace of Virginia tobacco baron, J. R. Reynolds. Reynolds’s parents, Hardin Reynolds and Nancy Jane Cox Reynolds, owned several hundred slaves, who worked the 717-acre Rock Spring plantation. One of these slaves went by the name of “Kitty,” a cook so celebrated that her picture now hangs in the restored cookhouse. Nancy Jane – who could apparently write a fine hand – […]

Categories: Africa, Southern Food, Sweet Potatoes • Tags: Critz, R. J. Reynolds, Slavery, Southern cooking, Southern Food, Sweet Potatoes, Virginia

Reflections on a Green-Grape Tart

September 28, 2012 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Sugary milky sweetness, that first delicious taste, imprints itself on a baby’s tiny tongue, and seals forever a great love. From the very beginning of life, then, a yearning for that nectar haunts us forever and never leaves us in peace. This primal urge for sweetness led to the scourge of slavery and fuels the modern obesity epidemic. Imagine, for a moment, vast fields of sugar cane, saber-sharp green blades swaying under gentle tropical breezes, fed by the merciless sun […]

Categories: Africa, France, French Cooking, Grapes, Middle Ages, Science of cooking • Tags: Grapes, Paula Wolfert, Sidney Mintz, Slavery, Sweetness and Power

Notes from Haiti: Restaveks

December 29, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

All around the world, cooks come in many shapes, ages, and dispositions. Many of these cooks are children, mostly girls, working in the kitchens of wealthy people. In some cases, the arrangement veers on the edge of slavery, not employment. And in Haiti, an outright form of slavery still exists. A recent Huffington Post article, “Report Says 225,000 Haiti Children Work as Slaves,” contains no real new information, although such publicity brings exposure and therefore possibly an end to this […]

Categories: Cooking, Food News, Haiti • Tags: Cooking, Haiti, Restaveks, Slavery, Water

Cooks Fairfield Plantation blackwoman_kitchen

Idylls of Cuisine, #41

December 6, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

[A photograph, and nothing more, for silent contemplation.]

Categories: African Cooking, American Cooking, Art, Cooking, Photography • Tags: African-American Cooks, Cooks, Food Photography, Kitchens, Plantations, Slavery

Christmas in Antebellum Virginia: Part II

December 3, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Dey ‘s a-wokin’ in de qua’tahs a-preparin’ fu’ de feas’, So de little pigs is feelin’ kind o’ shy. De chickens ain’t so trus’ful ez dey was, to say de leas’, An’ de wise ol’ hens is roostin’ mighty high. You could n’t git a gobblah fu’ to look you in de face– I ain’t sayin’ whut de tu’ky ‘spects is true; But hit’s mighty dange’ous trav’lin’ fu’ de critters on de place F’om de time dat log commence a […]

Categories: Africa, American Cooking, Christmas, Cookbooks, Cooking, Menus, Pork, Recipes, Southern Food, United States, Virginia • Tags: Booker T. Washington, Cooks, Edna Lewis, Liver Pudding, Plantation Cookery, Slavery, Southern cooking, Virginia

Christmas in Antebellum Virginia: Part I

November 30, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

What is now the state of Virginia boasted the first permanent English settlement in North America. Despite its rocky beginnings in 1607, the settlement eventually flourished. The first Africans arrived in 1619 and the tobacco industry began in earnest. Along with the need for cheap labor, provided by slavery, the colonialists desired nothing more than to live as English gentlemen and gentlewomen on the edge of the vast wilderness. That all this transpired thirteen years prior to the Pilgrims’ landing […]

Categories: Christmas, English Cooking, Menus, United States, Virginia • Tags: Christmas, Cooks, George Washington, Martha Washington, Slavery, Southern cooking

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